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Corporations should pay fair share of tax

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On the
Charlie Rose show the other night, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., made some interesting points
regarding corporations and taxes.

He pointed out that in America, corporations’ tax contributions currently amount to 9 percent of
the total tax revenue taken in by the government. He further stated that a few years ago, that
amount was 18 percent and not too long before that, corporations contributed fully half of all U.S.
tax revenues.

Imagine where this country would be if corporations weren't dodging their tax responsibilities
through various arcane tax loopholes and shipping their huge profits off-shore.

Levin cited a recent study of several large corporations with a combined annual profit of more
than $100 billion. Amount of taxes paid to the U.S. government? Zero, zip, nada, zilch.

While those are extreme cases, the fact is that corporations’ tax burden in America is light.
Forget the on-the-books corporate tax rates; when corporations use the tax loopholes so generously
provided to them by our legislators, their real rate of taxation is a measly 12 percent, less than
what Warren Buffet's secretary pays.

Close the loopholes and make these corporations pay their fair share. Everyone else is being
asked to tighten their belts, why not ExxonMobil? To take billions out of the system and put
nothing back in is unpatriotic and harmful to the country. It's time for it to stop.